BCC not ranked on US News High School Rankings

[Anonymous]

I was surprised to see that BCC was not ranked in Us News new high school rankings. No MoCo schools were in the top 100, gold medal schools, but if you search by state, Whitman, Wooten, Walter Johnson, Richard Montgomery, and Montgomery Blair all come up as in honable mention or silver and BCC is not there at all. Is it the worst of the MoCo high schools?

[Anonymous]

I've been watching the ranking for a few years, and it seems incredibly volatile. Schools move around dramatically from year to year. This is likely because ranking methodology encourages schools to boost their rankings by herding kids into AP and IB programs. So more schools are offering AP and IB, and counseling all types of kids to take them. Weast has a stated strategy of opening up IB programs all over MoCo, and this is typical of what's happening all over the US. Jay Matthews, the author of the index, thinks this is a good thing, but reasonable people may disagree.

Probably, BCC's only problem is that it offered the IB early on, so it stood out. Now everybody else is doing it too.

Your question about whether it's the "worst" must be provocation. There are what, at least 20, high schools in MCPS.

I don't have a kid in BCC, FWIW.

[Anonymous]

In addition to the above, MoCo schools may have failed to provide certain data on disadvantaged students, also maybe they didn't meet U.S News's Stage 1 hurdle: Must score > 1 standard deviation above their expected score on state assessment tests, given their poverty-adjusted performance:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2009/12/whats_with_the_new_us_news_hig.html

Adjusting for poverty is probably a good thing, BTW -- it puts schools on a more equal socio-economic ground.

[Anonymous]

Go Montgomery Blair!

http://www.usnews.com/listings/high-schools/maryland/montgomery_blair_high_school

[Anonymous]

Keep in mind that there are two sets of rankings - US News and Jay Mathews' Challenge Index in the Post. Most of the MCPS schools are pretty consistent year to year within one ranking but there's little correlation between the US News rankings and the Challenge Index.

My reading of the US News methodology is that if a school doesn't have a large group of minority students, or a large group of poverty students, the school bypasses the Stage 1 hurdle. And also keep in mind that US News includes magnet programs like TJ, and the Challenge Index doesn't include schools where the students are primarily selected through a competitive admissions process.

BTW, there are six IB schools in MCPS and two candidate schools awaiting approval by IB out of the 26 HSs in the county. All the schools offer AP.

[Anonymous]

I read over the US News methodology pretty quickly, but I was struck by the fact they they "predict" the school's performance based on socio-economic composition. As an economist, this tells me that a lot of the prediction is founded on the assumptions in their models, which we don't know.

[Anonymous]

My reading of the US News methodology is that if a school doesn't have a large group of minority students, or a large group of poverty students, the school bypasses the Stage 1 hurdle.

I'm 13:04 again, amending my own post. It should read a "large enough group of minority students, or a large enough group of poverty students". US News sets a threshold and doesn't measure poverty or minority students if the group is too small within the total school population, I think.

[Anonymous]

You may well be right. My point is just related to the various other unknowns in their methodology. It's explained a bit in the "pop-ups" that you see when you roll over things in the article:
http://www.usnews.com/listings/high-schools/maryland/richard_montgomery_high_school

Unfortunately I can't manage to copy the pop-ups here. But if you roll over line near the top for "poverty-adjusted performance index" you will see a pop-up that says something like, "distance from statistically expected performance, using the relationship between poverty and the state performance index". I just have no clue what this means -- is it some sort of national "relationship", do they do it on a state-by-state basis, and how is it derived?

[Anonymous]

13:15 again. And I should amend my post to say that I'm not sure that simply totalling up AP and IB tests (a la Newsweek) is a perfect methodology, either.

I like the idea of adjusting for poverty, but I just don't understand how it is done here.

Adjustments need to be made for the number of kids who actually do well on their AP and IB tests, too -- sorry, I've got to run off and don't have time to see whether Newsweek or US News does this.

[Anonymous]

OP here. No - I wasn't trying to be provocative. We're just contemplating a move and trying to figure out how to make sense of these ratings. I know many people love the school their children go to - that's why they send them there - and so I wanted to hear if people knew what these rankings meant and if anyone had chosen against a house in the BCC area because they thought other schools are better options.

[Anonymous]

Newsweek thinks BCC is great, as well as some of the others like Richard Montgomery that US News only gives "honorable mention" to. Newsweek has a different methodology, though, basically totting up the number of AP and IB candidates with more minor adjustments than US News, with the inevitable result that a school with lots of AP or IB does well. So pick your preferred methodology, and that will give you the ranking you trust most.

[Anonymous]

"OP here. No - I wasn't trying to be provocative. We're just contemplating a move and trying to figure out how to make sense of these ratings. I know many people love the school their children go to - that's why they send them there - and so I wanted to hear if people knew what these rankings meant and if anyone had chosen against a house in the BCC area because they thought other schools are better options. "

OP we made a point of moving into the Wooten cluster area and chose Montgomery County for the schools as one of the top factors. This was based on the rankings but MCPS' obsession with the rankings creates a poor educational climate, lots of teaching to the test, constant test prep, and unhappy parents and kids. We are now considering private school even though we would prefer to go public. You may want to look at Arlington or Falls Church if VA is an option for you.

[Anonymous]

excuses, excuses, excuses. booh hooh. poor BCC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My reading of the US News methodology is that if a school doesn't have a large group of minority students, or a large group of poverty students, the school bypasses the Stage 1 hurdle.

I'm 13:04 again, amending my own post. It should read a "large enough group of minority students, or a large enough group of poverty students". US News sets a threshold and doesn't measure poverty or minority students if the group is too small within the total school population, I think.

You are correct. I personally take the Challenge Index by Jay Matthews and the US News list with a grain of salt. The Challenge Index simply focuses on the number of AB & IB tests administered while the US News Ranking places a great deal of their methodology of the performance of "poor minorities". The problem with each of these studies is that neither paints a clear picture of school. The Challenge Index only highlights the number of students taking the exam not the actual performance. In the case of the US News rankings, schools that have high test scores but have a low minority population score so well on the ranking due to the small number of minority students. I believe the objective of the US News ranking is to highlight schools that churn out high test scores for minorities however; this can be extremely inaccurate as it's far easier for a wealthy school with a small percentage of minority students to be ranked higher than a school with a larger minority population. Simply because one school is ranked higher than another on this list does not necessarily mean that the higher ranked school is doing more for its students, particularly its minority population than a lower ranked school.

For BCC, the school has a Hispanic population of 14%, an African American population of 16% and a Asian population of 8% (rounded up). Compare that to Langley HS in Great Falls which only has 3 % Hispanic and 2% population of African American students. I highly doubt that Langley is really doing more minority students than BCC.

Lastly, simply because a school ranks high on this list should not the sole indicator in choosing the school for your children. I would read the parent feedback surveys, visit the school during a school day, and talk with neighbors in your target area about how they feel about the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For BCC, the school has a Hispanic population of 14%, an African American population of 16% and a Asian population of 8% (rounded up). Compare that to Langley HS in Great Falls which only has 3 % Hispanic and 2% population of African American students. I highly doubt that Langley is really doing more minority students than BCC.

Langley does have 17-18% Asian students, twice as many as BCC. I don't know, however, how that plays into the US News methodology.